


Breaker

by esteefee



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-05
Updated: 2012-03-05
Packaged: 2017-11-01 04:30:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteefee/pseuds/esteefee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a weird case, things get weirder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaker

"Oh, that's just deeply, deeply wrong," Danny said, staring down over the edge of the fermenting tank. 

Steve had to agree with him on that one, thinking of all the Longboards he'd consumed in his lifetime.

"I've been thinking about switching to the pale ale anyway." 

Danny just looked green while Max directed his assistant in lifting the body out of the tank.

"Careful, we don't want to lose any more of the skin."

"Our job, Steven,"—and this was much later out on Steve's lanai, after the brewmaster had made his second trip to the hotbox, this time accompanied by a fierce Kono, who'd dug up his illicit relationship with the victim's eighteen year-old daughter—"seriously. Is it just me, or is it getting weirder? Or was it always this weird and the shock has finally worn off and I'm regaining my senses? I ask you." 

Steve raised his glass of the single-malt Danny had brought over and observed the fading sun through the amber liquid. He'd never been much of a whiskey man—that was more his father's thing. But he supposed he could get used to it. He was getting older now. The cases were getting weirder, all right. Hell, the fact he had cases at all was weird—he'd always thought he'd be Navy to the end.

He turned his head and found Danny looking at him, eyes narrowed, either due to the sun or because he was trying to suss him out.

_Nothing to see here._

Danny was something else he hadn't been expecting. "Definitely getting weird," Steve said, going for reassurance but missing by about a mile, because Danny frowned like he'd heard what Steve wasn't saying.

Steve took a deep breath and sipped his whiskey some more, rolling it slowly on his tongue, inviting the burn. It wasn't bad.

But he missed his familiar Longboard. 

"Right, weird." Danny kicked his bare feet up onto the coffee table, nearly knocking over the whiskey bottle, and Steve leaned forward to steady it. While he had it in hand, he poured himself another shot, smaller this time, and topped off Danny's glass as well. The sun had dipped below the horizon, and Steve put down his glass to roll down his sleeves. 

Danny crossed his arms. "I know what you're thinking."

"Do you now?" Steve doubted that a lot. He shifted in his chair, thinking he needed to get new cushions. His ribs still ached in the evenings and he couldn't get comfortable like this. Pushing away some bad memories, he took another sip of whiskey.

It was growing on him.

"See, first, it's New York-style pizza—"

"You know, I looked up Original Ray's, and there's like a million of them. I think you guys are full of shit."

"There's only one _Original_ Original Ray's."

"Pull the other one, Danno."

" _One_ —just one worth speaking of—"

"Plus, instead of a slice you can call it a 'slab.'"

"Oh, so thanks to the wonders of the Internet now you think you're an expert?" Danny smirked, and Steve smiled back, but looked down at his drink again. This had to be payback for all the 'therapy' he'd been shoving on Danny.

"I was going to say, first the real pizza, then the whiskey, but maybe it's not such a good change. It's turned you downright morose."

"I'm not morose. I'm just being introspective."

"Uh-huh." There went the smirking again.

"I'm a thoughtful guy. Who thinks deeply thoughtful...thoughts."

Danny lifted his glass. "You're Rodin, except with a hand grenade."

"Rodin was the sculptor, not the statue."

"Whatever. Aristotle, then."

"Yeah. He had a huge yacht, the _Christina_. I wish I had a yacht."

"Not Onassis, you yutz. God, everything is boats with you."

It had done the trick, anyway, because Danny started going on about how water was only one of the elements, there being at least three others he knew of, which led to Steve pointing out he was fond of skydiving as well, which made Danny choke on his whiskey until his eyes watered.

"What were we talking about?" Danny had wiped his eyes and was resting his elbows on his knees.

"Boats. We should go sailing."

"Oh, as if me and you—sharks—thank you, no. That's not what we were talking about, anyway. We were saying you are a moody motherfucker, McGarrett, when the whiskey has a hold of you."

Now was the time, if any, to bail out.

"So, now that I know you really can swim, maybe you'll come out surfing with us sometime." 

"You mean you think eating pizza is a fair exchange for being half-drowned by gigantic waves out to pound me into oblivion?"

Steve smiled into his glass. It was very nearly possible Danny might be his breaker, might be the wave that turned him under and left him in a pile on the sand. And Steve was definitely getting older now. Too old to pick himself up again. He had safe arrangement with Cath. Safe and distant and—Danny was too close, always too close. 

Shaking his head, Steve said, "Yeah, I didn't think so—"

"Which isn't to say I'm not willing to give it a try."

Something jerked in Steve's stomach. "What, seriously?" 

"Steve." Danny leaned forward and tapped his wrist. "You hearing me?"

It felt like the wind died, or maybe it was just that Danny had gone utterly motionless for once, watching him, waiting, but Steve suddenly felt like he was in the curl of a perfect wave, glass walls all around him.

Steve said carefully "You're always bitching about me getting you into danger. Perilous situations, you call it."

"You're a big one for peril, it's true—peril is your forte, it's like your tomato soup."

"My tomato soup." Steve fingered his empty glass. The whiskey must have gone to his head or something.

"Other people have tomato soup, you have peril, is what I'm saying."

"Right. So you're okay with soup."

"What I'm getting at is," and when had Danny's voice gone so low and husky? "I'm okay with surfing. I want to try surfing with you, if that's all right. Because you drive me crazy most days, and each day is progressively weirder, like we established, but you liked my pizza and I don't enjoy seeing you down in the dumps."

Danny was rubbing Steve's wrist, right there on the table, and every time Steve turned the glass, he could feel the tendon tensing against the pad of Danny's thumb. Just that was enough to do something weird to his stomach that he couldn't put down to the whiskey, no matter how strong it was. 

"I have to tell you, Danno, it's not just your pizza I like."

Danny's hand tightened on his wrist. "Yeah, well, it's kind of mutual."

"And you know how I feel about Gracie..."

Danny smiled and leaned closer to him. "I do."

Danny's mouth tasted like twenty-two year-old whiskey, but that was all right. Steve didn't mind at all. What mattered was Danny was strong and solid, unfaltering beneath him as they rocked in the warmth of Steve's bed. Danny didn't leave him drowning.

Anyway, the next morning over breakfast Danny said he was going to chuck the bottle because the whiskey put Steve in a mood. They decided they were going to switch to Hawai'i Nui's golden ale until Kona's tanks got scrubbed and sanitized. Really, really well.

Then while Danny cleaned up, Steve made the call to Cath, the one he always figured she'd be the one to make to him one day, and he told her he'd found someone who, improbably, was up for the ride that was his life.

He told her he loved her, and he wished her luck and good sailing, and she laughed, and sounded wistful, but glad for him. 

"Don't fuck it up, Steve," she said.

"How likely do you think that is?" he said.

"Not very, but give it a shot anyway."

When he hung up the phone, Danny was waiting, a cup of coffee in his hand. His feet were bare, and Steve took a moment to look at his toes, the blond hair on his shins, the way one kneecap seemed slightly askew from his knee injury.

"You admiring my gams?"

Steve grinned. "Maybe. What're you gonna do about it?"

"File a report?" Danny handed him the coffee.

"What kind of report?"

"A Visual Harassment report. On the stated date, the Lieutenant Commander in question did freely ogle Detective Williams' lower extremities in an unseemly manner."

"Oh, unseemly, now. What seems to be unseemly?" Steve put the cup down on the counter and stalked toward Danny, who backed away from him while visibly fighting a grin.

"You seemed to me pretty unseemly, the way your eyeballs were traveling all over—"

Steve cornered him by the kitchen table and grabbed his waist. "I deny the charges. I think you seemed just fine with it. Am I right, or am I right?" Steve gave Danny a push onto the table, and then ran his hands from Danny's knees all the way up his thighs just to feel the way the hair pushed against his palms and Danny flexed at his touch. 

"Huh. What was the question again?"

"Never mind," Steve said, smiling so broadly he could barely kiss Danny properly, could barely think. All Steve knew was the sun was dazzling his eyes through the blinds, and Danny's hands were sliding under his shirt, and his heart was beating so hard he might never find the surface to breathe again. 

And that was just fine.

 

_End._

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [an urban legend](http://www.snopes.com/horrors/cannibal/worker.asp) from snopes.com.


End file.
